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Newspaper scores a hit with football fans

A football app for smartphones devised by a North East newspaper has been downloaded by thousands of fans.

The Northern Echo has relaunched its Football North East smartphone app for the new season.

It features regular updates on Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Darlington football clubs.

The app has been downloaded 8,500 times and more than half of those of those downloads were in the four weeks following the relaunch.

Editor Peter Barron said: “The way people get their news and information is changing all the time, and we are keen to use whatever new technology is at our disposal to help keep our readers entertained and up to date.

“Football fans in particular like to get their news on the move, and the new Football North East app means they never need to miss out on a story involving their club again.

“We’ve listened to some of the comments that were made about last season’s app, and hopefully we’ve come back with a bigger and better model.”

The Newsquest owned newspaper launched its first app for the World Cup last year.

The Northern Echo Tournament Tracker 2010 featured in Apple’s list of the ten most downloaded football apps, providing users up to the minute news, scores and match reports and updates from the Echo’s reporter in South Africa.

It also features previews and match reports for every match involving a North-East team this season; a full fixture list, league table and stats section for all of the region’s clubs.

As well as this it has a live scores section providing up-to-the-second updates for every game across all four leagues, including matches not involving teams from the North-East; and a new non-league section bringing together all the latest news and results from the Northern League.